Sacramento County Biographies
OLIVER PLUMMER
Transcribed by Debbie Walke Gramlick.
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
Oliver Plummer, a rancher of Cosumnes Township, was born in Yates County, New
York, November 26, 1829, his parents being William and Delilah (Fitzsimmons)
Plummer. The family moved to Illinois in 1844. The father, a native of
Pennsylvania, lived to be seventy-six, and the mother to be seventy-four.
Grandfather George Plummer, a native of New Jersey and a Revolutionary soldier,
lived to the age of ninety-one, and his wife, Hannah McMurtrie, reached ninety.
Receiving a limited education in the district schools, Oliver worked on his
father�s farm until he set out for California. Crossing the plains, he arrived
in Sacramento September 20, 1852, and went to teaming with the two horses he had
driven to Illinois. After eight months he opened a miners� store on Dry Creek,
near Drytown in Amador County, which he carried on about three years. Mr.
Plummer was married at Cosumnes May 18, 1856, to Miss Mary L. Wilson, born in
South Bend, Indiana, September 8, 1839, her parents being William D. and
Elizabeth (Garver) Wilson, both natives of Ohio. The father was born April 3,
1810, and the mother in 1813. They left Indiana for California in 1847, but
wintered in Missouri, and in 1848 resumed their journey. The father was captain
of the emigrant train. On the way they heard from returning Mormons of the
discovery of gold in California. Mr. Wilson and part of the company concluded to
seek the land of gold, while others kept to the original design of going to
Oregon. On his arrival Mr. Wilson mined for a short time on Mormon Island and
then moved to Hangtown, now Placerville, where in the winter of 1848-�49 he
built the first house erected in that place. The family then comprised six
children; five more were born in California; nine grew to maturity and seven are
living in 1889. In the spring of 1850 he moved down on the Cosumnes and
purchased 6,000 acres of the Hartnell Grant, and built a tavern, long known as
Wilson�s Exchange, across the river from what is now the Cosumnes post office.
He was postmaster from the establishment of that office until 1868. He was by
trade a millwright and built the first suspension bridge on the Cosumnes. In
1868 he sold out his ranch and hotel and moved to Gilroy, Santa Clara County,
where he died November 22, 1869. His widow, by her second marriage, Mrs. W.A.
Angel, died at Los Angeles July13, 1877. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Plummer
rented Wilson�s Exchange in 1857 and carried on the tavern business for three
years. Mr. Plummer also rented some 600 acres from his father-in-law and went
into cattle-raising and general farming, in which he continued until 1870, after
the place had been sold by Mr. Wilson. In 1871 he bought 230 acres about three
miles higher up on the Cosumnes, where he still resides, and of which about 100
acres are bottom land. He does general farming, and makes a specialty of corn
and alfalfa on the home place. He also owns 280 acres below Sebastopol and rents
2,000 acres, as sheep range, of which he usually keeps about 2,500 head. Mr. and
Mrs. Plummer have two daughters and one son: Mary Emma, born November 13, 1857,
and Alma May, born December 24, 1862. These fondly cling to the homestead, a
help and comfort to their parents. The son, Harry William, born April 3, 1860,
was married at San Jose January 1, 1884, to Miss Annie Fischer, born in New
York, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fischer. They have two children: Oliver
Christian, born September 28, 1884, and Gertrude, born July 28, 1886, who are
equally at home with their grandparents on the Cosumnes or their parents in
Sacramento.
An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. By Hon. Win. J. Davis.
Lewis Publishing Company 1890. Pages 435-436.